Rating: 
Summary: Bellissimo, Fellini. The best.
Review: I saw this film when I was five and it has haunted me my whole life. I watch it every couple of years to see who I have become, and how my viewpoint of living has shifted. Any sane soul living quasi-consciously through the last few decades of unbridled mammonism and pop trash may likely identify with its semi-impotent protagonist, Marcello Rubini, who wanders the graytone alleyways of dear old Rome in great suits and sports cars, sporting sexy ennui. Torn as he is between the Idealized Feminine and the Matronly Woman - and committed to neither, Marcello finds himself permanently detached from the eternally-themed scenarios that he watches unfold in whacked-out tableaux around him (sort of like a day in Los Angeles, maybe). Yes, it is a Sweet Life, even as dread and the sense that "nothing ca n be done" overcomes the best of us. Add to this Nino Rota's timeless score; the best costumes ever splashed across a black and white fresco; pregnant dialogue; and, a devastating vignette featuring the sad and lonely Steiner and the fate of his family in an E.U.R. highrise apartment complex. It's three hours of the most penetrating stuff I've ever seen, yet totally entertaining and charming, and ofttimes very, very funny. In a dark way, of course.
Rating:
Summary: La Dolce Vita
Review: I think La Dolce Vita might be the best film I've ever seen, and I have been waiting for the DVD for years. Please hurry whoever you have to, to release it as soon as possible. Of course this is not a review, you don't need to review perfect films, you just watch and enjoy. I will be expecting the release date, so I can prepare the watching party, here in lovely Queretaro, Mexico. By the way, soon I will be selling a very used copy of La Dolce Vita in a Beta tape, is anyone interested?
Rating:
Summary: One of the Greatest Films Ever Made
Review: If film is a collaboration of people attempting to clarify one person's view of the world -- that of the director -- then La Dolce Vita is the most spectacular example of this paradox that I've seen yet. A series of intwertwined anecdotes, none of which have much in common, outline the sketchy life that is Marcello Mastroianni's. As a celebrity reporter, he walks the line between living a real life and creating one out of thin air, manipulating the people he knows and loves, hiding his emotions behind a veneer of indifference that threatens to suffocate him -- and us -- as the emotional wight of the film swells throughout, threatening to overwhelm him (and us) unless he acts instead of reacts.Love and sex, life and death, friendship and family, religion and reality -- all are covered here but none are analyzed. To his credit, Fellini is able to evoke more from a gesture, a pause or a heartbreaking silence than most filmmakers can from a full 90 minutes. From the opening image of a helicopter transporting a giant statue of Jesus over a swimming pool bedecked with bathing beauties, Fellini manages to cover a multitude of feelings, desires, questions and fears simultaneously. Personally, my favorite sequences involve Mastroianni's father, whose silence says more about his regard for his son and his own life than any dialogue would, and the scene in the castle rooms connected by echoes, which sums up the frustration of things unheard, miscommunicated and left unsaid. How different would any of our lives be if we could all speak face to face; how exasperatingly perfect a metaphor for the failures of personal communication. Although 8 1/2 is regarded as Fellini's most personal film and enduring testament, I've always voted for La Dolce Vita as his masterpiece. Understated (if a Fellini film can be), filled with majestic images that burn themselves into one's subconscious while inviting subsequent viewings, bursting with undiscussed passions and intentions, this is a document of a life ALMOST lived. I find it hard to believe anyone could walk away from this film NOT glad to be alive.
Rating: 
Summary: All Deadends Lead to Rome
Review: In such a segmental movie it's hard not to review it in segments, but we should look for a unifying theme nonetheless. I was fortunate enough to see La Dolce Vita on the big screen recently. However the screen size made me wonder: Was Rome really this ugly or did Fellini go out of his way to film in dumps? The aerial shots of the Eternal City look like nothing more than the ghastly Soviet-era concrete slums that feature in pictures of Russian cities.
Fellini must have been feeling ironic when he titled this movie. There's little sweet in the life of the main character Marcello Rubini or the beautiful people he hangs out with. There's nothing solid in writer Rubini's life, no stable relationships, and even his job consists of annoying the jet-setters and pandering to the masses. The movie starts with him unable to communicate with a bevy of suntanning women over the roar of the helicopter, and ends with him equally unable to communicate with a young, innocent girl over the crashing surf. Despite all his dalliances Rubino is ultimately estranged from women. He cannot even figure out his neurotic girlfriend, who is the only person in the movie who loves and cares for him.
Perhaps a key to understanding Rubino is his relationship with his father, who comes briefly to visit. Rubino admits he never knew his dad who was gone all the time while he grew up. There is a moment in the film, quite touching in a way, when the father decides suddenly to return home. Rubino is anxious to have his father stay at least overnight, not just for his health (the dad was unwell after a night of carousing) but also because, I suspect, he wanted to better know his father and fill a void. He can scarcely let go of the taxi that takes his father away from him, again.
Poor Rubini. He falls in lust with Sylvie, the eye-popping screen goddess (how did Raquel Welch ever eclipse Anita Ekberg, who played Sylvie?) to no avail, thinks he loves Beautiful Person Maddalena who would be poison for him, can't get along with his girlfriend, and longs for a father that is not a distant stranger.
Fellini falls into an old cliche when he has Steiner, an intellectual and acquaintance of Rubini and apparent rock of good sense and stability, kill his adorable children and himself. It's always the person you least suspect, and always done as an unconvincing plot device to take a turn or set up a new crisis. Fellini apparently thought this bit of extravagance justified in order to send Rubini over the edge, or at least into the gutter of debauchery in the final party. It's as if Rubini is to deny himself or be denied any sturdy human post he can lean on--father, lover, or friend.
I suppose any number of conclusions may be drawn from the movie, including that of there being no conclusion at all but the movie merely documenting postwar anomie and decadence in Italy. Rubini appears in the end to become one of the society elite he's trailed for so long, whose motto could be "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." The picture stays with you and leaves you feeling a little hollow. It does have power. It's well worth watching but I wouldn't think it a be-all, end-all great movie.
Rating:
Summary: Crowning Jewel in Italian Cinema
Review: Inspired by Dante's works, this films stands up as the greatest Italian film ever made. Everything going on today with celebrities, fame, fortune, promiscuity, it is all here. Marcello Mastroianni plays Marcello, a gossip reporter in the entertainment circles of Rome. The film has no specific plot or trama, and it works more as a compilation of vignettes and ocurrences all linked by Marcello. The film touches upon the themes of death, friendship, perversion, love or the lack of it, and fear of one's self. A brilliant accomplishment.
Rating:
Summary: The shortest, most amazing three hours you'll ever spend
Review: It would be easy to write off the movie that launched Federico Fellini to international acclaim as a decadent feast of glamour and vanity that adds up to little (the textbook for my film class does just so). If you did so, though, you'd be robbing Fellini's best, most complex, and most deeply moving film of everything it deserves. A first viewing of Vita was enough to convince me that it's a brilliant film; after seeing it again this weekend I'm kind of humbled at its very existence. Here is a movie that, for nearly three hours, holds you for dear life and then has you wanting it to go on at the credits. Here is a movie that has moments of oddball recklessness and quiet beauty, both deliriously gorgeous; one that puts its protagonist through hell and back but still gives him hope. Yeah, I could tell you a plot synopsis (gossip columnist (Marcello Mastrioanni) experiences the night life of Rome), but that would be cheating and wouldn't do it justice. La Dolce Vita, though about vanity and emptiness, is a movie of ideas. I've been thinking about it all day, I think I know what he's saying, and I just want to experience it again. And what an experience: the cinematography is graceful (not a handheld shot to be found), the performances surrounding that of Mastrioanni are gleefully over-the-top (look for Nico, of Warhol's 'Factory,' near the end), and the conclusion to which the film inexorably builds is as powerful as it is ambiguous. Yes, 8 1/2 is an interesting film, but its pretention gets in the way. Sure, La Strada and I Vitelloni are wonderful little neo-realistic works, but they seem to just hint at something on the horizon for the director. This is it, the Fellini movie that is perfect in every way. With La Dolce Vita, Italy's most beloved director shows he belongs in the same breath as The Bicycle Thief and The Passion of Joan of Arc when we talk about the best foreign films ever made. A+
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating Look at The Sweet Life's Hollow Center
Review: LA DOLCE VITA presents a series of incidents in the life of Roman tabloid reporter Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni)--and although each incident is very different in content they gradually create a portrait of an intelligent but superficial man who is gradually consumed by "the sweet life" of wealth, celebrity, and self-indulgence he reports on and which he has come to crave. Although the film seems to be making a negative statement about self-indulgence that leads to self-loathing, Fellini also gives the viewer plenty of room to act as interpreter, and he cleverly plays one theme against its antithesis throughout the film. (The suffocation of monogamy vs. the meaninglessness of promiscuity and sincere religious belief vs. manipulative hypocrisy are but two of the most obvious juxtapositions.) But Fellini's most remarkable effect here is his ability to keep us interested in the largely unsympathetic characters LA DOLCE VITA presents: a few are naive to the point of stupidity; most are vapid; the majority (including the leads) are unspeakably shallow--and yet they still hold our interest over the course of this three hour film. The cast is superior, with Marcello Mastroianni's personal charm particularly powerful. As usual with Fellini, there is a lot to look at on the screen: although he hasn't dropped into the wild surrealism for which he was sometimes known, there are quite a few surrealistic flourishes and visual ironies aplenty--the latter most often supplied by the hordes of photographers that scuttle after the leading characters much like cockroaches in search of crumbs. Unfortunately, the only release now available is a grainy-looking videotape presented in pan-and-scan. But don't let that discourage you: even in this format its still a very worth while, very memorable film!
Rating:
Summary: insomnia no more
Review: Like L'Avventura, when I watch La Dolce Vita, I fall asleep faster than you can say, "Where is that Bunuel DVD?" Even Ozu's Tokyo Story seems like Rambo/Terminator edge of your seat action bonanzas compared to these two Italian "masterpieces". Antonioni's film is a bit more cerebral whereas Fellini's is whimsical. In all seriousness, La Dolce Vita is well made, well acted, and contains some glorious filmaking such as the scene when soft Italian newspaper reporter and platinum blond actress first dance and then she is swept off her feet by a fellow mutant actor that looks like a cartoonish devil. Perhaps I was just tired and it was late at night when I watched these two Italian films; and the commentaries, although informative, are somewhat soporific.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointed
Review: Maybe I was too young. I signed up for a course called "Italian Cinema and Culture" for the first term of my freshman year in college, thinking it sounded glorious. Ahh, to escape the immature boys of high school, go to college and learn about Italian culture and film! Big mistake. Huge. It was a little over a decade ago, but I vividly remember sitting in the lecture hall, and thinking, "Are they kidding? A fish?" The disappointment was very similar to my experience reading A Farewell to Arms, when I learned the difference between a Great Book and a book that would leave me impacted: I have to care. With both Hemingway and this movie, I just didn't.
Rating:
Summary: Living the sour life
Review: Most critics consider the soulful "La Strada" to be Federico Fellini's masterpiece, but for just plain entertainment nothing beats "La Dolce Vita". From the opening shot of the hovering Christ statue suspended from a helicopter blessing the City of God to the final close-up of the Umbrian angel gazing after the debauched hero (literally stranded very much like Zampano in "La Strada') "La Dolce Vita" has one scene after another to fascinate on the first viewing or to anticipate time and again. I'm sure everyone has his favorite sequence: the sex goddess wading in the Fontana di Trevi, the giggling children leading a gullible crowd to a "vision" of the Virgin Mary, or the beach house orgy which climaxes this study of jet-set corruption. Corruption is the key word here, and the movie was critized for saying "tsk tsk" to its characters while exploiting their depravity. The cast (or type-cast) is headed by Marcello Mastroianni as Marcello, a bachelor who is catnip to females. Anita Ekberg, a Swedish-born American movie star, plays ... a Swedish-born American movie star! On a sadder level, Lex Barker, a washed-up Tarzan, plays a washed-up Tarzan. The plot consists of Marcello's affairs with a succession of beauties, including Anouk Aimée as a jaded heiress who drifts in and out of Marcello's life, and Yvonne Furneaux as his mistress, pathetically attempting domesticity in an unfurnished apartment. Between beds, Marcello wanders around viewing Roman fever in various locales: a Renaissance castello, a tacky night club, and the Via Veneto, crowded with celebrities and sports cars. Rarely has decadence looked so attractive, photographed in black-and-white wide screen and hopped- up by Nino Rota's nervous music. (Incredibly, I can't find a video cassette in letter-box format.) Marcello is a journalist who specializes in tabloid scandal stories. His sidekick is a ruthlessly aggressive photographer named Paparazzo -- his plural is "paparazzi". An intellectual acquaintance named Steiner (hauntingly played by Alain Cuny) encourages Marcello to pursue more serious writing, but it is Steiner's incomprehensible act of destruction that finally sends Marcello over the edge, causing him to fall headlong into the sweet life which becomes increasingly "acida". Fellini shows the lassitude and futility of these beautiful but blank lives, the characters bored and, yes, basically boring. So why is the story so engrossing? I think it's because the director never repeats himself; every sequence is a variation on the same theme. Fellini, fascinated by the circus, knew how to hold an audience's attention; and in "La Dolce Vita" he has all three rings going at once: a tremendous life force, degeneration, and (in the closing shot of the innocent girl's face) hope. All you have to do is sit back with a glass of Chianti and enjoy the show.
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